The man gave a slight nod to indicate that Brandt’s guess at his identity was correct. Then he pulled a paper from the bag strapped to his belt and held it up for Brandt to see. “Lieutenant Evans, I have been authorized by the United States government to take you into custody.”
“Custody?” Brandt repeated, his curiosity rapidly replaced by incredulity. “For what?”
“Charges have yet to be finalized pending further investigation,” Major Bradford said, “but they’re considering treason.”
“Treason?”
“For your part in the release of what has become known as the Michaluk Virus,” Bradford explained. He signaled to two of his men and instructed, “Cuff him. If he resists, tase him.” As Brandt gawked at the man, Major Bradford turned on his heel and started toward the roof access ladder, raising his voice to announce, “And issue commands to your squads to initiate Operation Whiteout.”
“What’s Operation Whiteout?” Brandt asked as two of the soldiers stepped toward him. He moved forward, aiming for the gap in between the two, intending to go to the major and make him answer his question. “Major Bradford, what’s Operation Whiteout?”
In hindsight, Brandt shouldn’t have taken that step forward. At the time, though, the thought of keeping his distance hadn’t occurred to him until gloved hands grasped his shoulders and body-slammed him backwards onto the hard tile floor. His breath raced out of his lungs in a whoosh, and his head banged against the floor, intensifying the headache he already had until it pulsed angrily at his temples and behind his eyes. He lifted a hand to press it to his head, grimacing, but someone grabbed his wrist and slammed it down onto the floor again, and then hands rolled him over onto his stomach and wrenched his arms behind his back.
Zip ties encircled his wrists and tightened into place.
“Please don’t make this harder on yourself than it needs to be,” one of the soldiers said. Then he was hauled to his feet and shoved toward the front doors. He stumbled, but the soldiers kept him on his feet. Above them, the whine of the helicopter’s engines filled the air. The whine turned into the rhythmic chug of rotors, picking up faster and faster until they blended together into one solid scream. Brandt could pinpoint the exact moment the helicopter lifted off the roof, but it didn’t fly away like he’d expected. Instead, it lifted off the roof just to hop to the ground in front of the building.
Two of the soldiers stepped forward to unbolt the doors, and then they swung them open, letting in the cool night air. The helicopter rested on the ground fifty yards away, the rotors still spinning, sending hard gusts of air into the dining area and tumbling tables and chairs in the onslaught.
“Keep your head down unless you want to lose it!” one of the soldiers yelled into his ear. The soldiers didn’t wait for his acknowledgment before they started shoving him toward the helicopter.
“What about the other survivors?” Brandt asked, but none of the soldiers answered him. They just kept goading him forward, closer to the helicopter, and when he reached it, his head ducked low to avoid the rotors. Hands bodily picked him up and threw him into the helicopter, where he landed in a heap on the metal floor. He lifted his head as the soldiers boarded the aircraft and looked right at Major Bradford, who was staring down at him with apparent contempt.
“What is Operation Whiteout?” Brandt asked again, directing his question to the major. Major Bradford ignored him and signaled to the helicopter pilot. Brandt’s stomach lurched as the helicopter lifted from the ground. He swallowed bile down and looked out the still-open door as the helicopter slowly swung around. One of the soldiers leaned to slide the door shut, but the door didn’t slide closed in time to block Brandt’s view of two AH-60L DAP helicopters swooping down onto the community. And he let out a cry of alarm and anguish as the DAPs opened fire, their M134 mini-guns pouring ammunition directly into the front façade of the medical house.
Chapter 37
The first volley fired from the DAPs tore into the medical house, shredding through wood and plaster, embedding into the furniture, shredding fabric, and breaking glass. Remy had been halfway between the top of the staircase and the second-floor landing when the firing had begun, and she screamed as large-caliber bullets embedded into the wall just above her head. Ducking and covering, she scampered down the stairs, scrambling to the bottom and bolting toward the back of the house. She slipped and skidded across the kitchen floor, taking cover behind the island at the center of the kitchen, figuring it was safe enough for the moment since it was made of brick. Then she pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her head, and closed her eyes, fighting to hold back the second scream that bubbled up in her throat.
Then the shooting stopped.
Remy didn’t hesitate. She flew to her feet, ran to the back door by the fridge, and fumbled with the locks. Then she was in the backyard, running full tilt for the main house next door, her shoes shushing through the tall, dew-dampened grass.
She had to get to Cade and the others before the shooting started again.
Chapter 38
Sadie had watched in horror from the window of her and Jude’s upstairs bedroom as the massive black helicopter bristling with weaponry had fired at the house next door, peppering the entire front of the building with round after round of ammunition. It had taken everything in her to not scream out in horror, up to stuffing her knuckles half into her mouth to muffle the whimpers that were escaping.
Then she’d come to her senses and dropped to the floor, ducking down low so nothing of her showed over the windowsill. Her only thoughts were that there was no guarantee that the helicopters would stop with the medical house and that she had to get to Jude right now.
Sadie waited for a lull in the shooting before she made her move. Quickly checking the security of her weapons, she scrambled forward, half crawling to the door and out into the hall. She tried to remember where the last place she’d seen Jude was, and as she lurked in the hallway trying to remember, the firing started again. She reflexively ducked, cowering in the hallway, before she realized the gunfire hadn’t been turned onto the main house.
Yet, a nasty voice in the back of her head murmured darkly.
She shook it off and hurried to the stairs, her heart pounding as she descended them to look for Jude. When she reached the bottom, he seemed to appear out of the darkness, sliding almost silently from the shadows to meet her. “Jesus, Jude, way to give me a fucking heart attack!” she hissed.
“They’re shooting up the house across the street,” Jude signed to her, his hands shaking to the point that his words were almost indecipherable. “What do we do, Sadie?”
“We get the hell out of here,” Sadie said, grabbing for his wrist. “We should never have come here. We should have just stayed in the damned woods where we belonged.”
Jude resisted, pulling in the opposite direction that Sadie was trying to haul him. He twisted free of her grasp. “We can’t leave,” he signed to her, glaring at her in the dim light. “It’s our fault that the infected and the military are here,” he elaborated. “Our fault.” He gestured between the two of them emphatically, a scowl on his face. “We can’t just ditch out without helping them get out of here.”
Sadie rolled her eyes and threw her hands into the air. “Fine,” she said, the word oozing with her frustration. “But as soon as we help get them clear, we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Footsteps running across the living room met her ears, and she drew her pistol and pointed it in the direction of the sound. Jude lurched forward, grabbing her arm and pushing it down to aim the weapon at the floor. Keith hurried out of the shadows and grabbed them both by their biceps. He didn’t seem to notice the gun Sadie had just pointed at him, or he didn’t care.
“We need to move,” he said, his tone urgent. “One of the helicopters just finished shooting up the place across the street and took off, and I think the other one is swinging around to aim at this house. Get out the back door, now!”
“You let me worry about that,” Keith said. “Move now.” Then he shoved them both through the kitchen and to the back door. He unfastened the locks and pushed them onto the back porch before slamming the door again. Sadie heard him through the door, running across the kitchen, his boots thudding dully on the stairs. She looked at her brother with wide eyes.
“What now?” Sadie asked.
“We wait for the others,” Jude signed without looking at her. His eyes scanned the back yard and what could be seen of the side yard. She took her cue from him and mimicked his actions. He tapped her arm to get her attention and then quickly signed, “There are some infected in the side yard and a few coming around the corner of the house from the other way.”
“What do you want to do about them?”
“We can’t leave them for the others to run into, especially not Cade,” Jude replied, hands flying. “Not comfortable with her fighting while in labor. We should lure them into the backyard where there’s cover and kill them quietly.”
Despite the impending danger, despite the helicopter on the other side of the house, despite the fact that their very lives hung by a thread, Sadie smiled.
Chapter 39
Dominic waited until the helicopter and the soldiers had left, taking Brandt with them, before he dared to creep through the kitchen and out the back door. He’d had to fight the impulse to rush out to Brandt’s defense the entire time the soldiers had been taking him into custody and shoving him into the helicopter, telling himself over and over that his intervention wouldn’t come to anything but his own death. So he’d waited, biding his time, prioritizing those who were likely unable to help themselves.
Once Brandt and the squad of soldiers were gone and he’d stepped outside into the cool night air, he’d watched from around the corner of the rec center as two AH-60L DAP helicopters opened fire on the community’s fortified houses, the ammunition shredding through the facades like they were made of cake. His heart had sunk as he’d watched the bullets tear through the front of the medical house, knowing that there was a good chance that Remy was inside, that even if she wasn’t, she would most certainly be in the main house, which was likely to get the same treatment as the medical house.
Then the helicopter had turned its mini-guns onto the house across the street from the main house, and Dominic had been unable to contain his horror. “There are children in that house, you bastards!” he yelled, his throat hoarse with the volume he was unaccustomed to, but the soldiers wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the sound of their weapons anyway.
It had been his chance, though, and he’d run across the street into the backyards, climbing over fences and staying low in the tall grass, hoping he wouldn’t be sighted from above as he hurried toward the medical house, intent on looking for Remy—or Remy’s body.
He dropped over the privacy fence between the medical house and the house next door just in time to glimpse Remy walking rapidly through the grass, toward the main house as if she were on a mission.
“Oh thank God,” he breathed. Then he called, “Remy!” but she didn’t seem to hear him over the helicopters. So he picked up the pace, racing after her across the yard.
That was when the helicopters grew louder and when soldiers started dropping from the sky.
Chapter 40
Cade stood at the main house’s back door, flanked by Derek on one side and Keith on the other. Isaac bustled around upstairs, gathering a few last-minute supplies he thought they might need. Cade desperately wished he would hurry up. She was ready to get moving, and she preferred to do so before she dropped a baby in the middle of the kitchen floor.
She hadn’t had a contraction in almost ten minutes. That meant she was probably due for one, soon. The anticipation of the pain was almost as bad as the pain itself, she reflected as she drew the pistol she’d insisted on carrying and ejected the magazine to make sure her weapon was fully loaded and ready to fire. It was, just as she’d verified the last time she’d handled it.
“Why do you think they’re shooting us up?” Keith asked suddenly, breaking the hush in the kitchen. “It’s the military. I thought they were supposed to help us.”
“If I had to take a guess?” Cade slammed the magazine back into the pistol’s grip and slid it back into its holster. “Maybe they have orders to fire on anyone suspected of having direct contact with the infected.”
“Quarantine,” Derek suddenly said, drawing the word out, as if he were thinking something over.
Cade looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“It reminds me of what happened at the CDC in Atlanta, back when all of this first started,” Derek explained. “When the military showed up with orders not to help us but to terminate the entire project and everyone involved. Maybe they’re running under similar orders here.”
“And in that case,” Isaac spoke up from behind them as he entered the kitchen, carrying a bulging army green duffle bag, “then we shoot anything that’s wearing camouflage. Because I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in dying today.”
“Hear, hear,” Keith muttered.
Isaac didn’t acknowledge Keith’s agreement. Instead, he took a rifle off his shoulder and extended it to Cade. She grinned as she realized it was her Galil. “Got your rifle for you,” he said.
“Thanks,” Cade replied, her grin widening as she took it from him. She settled it onto her shoulder, resting it against her back, where it belonged, and watched as Isaac scanned the room.
“Where are the twins?” Isaac asked. “I looked for them upstairs but couldn’t find them.”
“I, ah, put them out onto the back porch when I thought the helicopter was about to take a pass at this house,” Keith answered. When Cade gave him an incredulous look, he held his hands up defensively. “What? I was thinking the more walls between them and the helicopter, the better.”
None of them could really argue with that logic, but Cade still didn’t like it. He’d shoved two kids outside to fend for themselves? Who cared how capable they were! That just came off as a little cold-hearted. She grabbed the doorknob with the intention of checking to make sure the two teenagers were still alive when something thumped on the front porch and then banged against the front door. All four of them jumped, and Cade half-turned in that direction as she asked, “What the hell was that?”
“I’ll go check it out,” Keith offered, but Derek practically threw himself across Cade to grab the man’s arm and stop him.
“No, don’t!” he exclaimed. “If my theory about it being a military action is correct, then you’re going to get yourself shot if you go that way.”
“Not if I shoot them first,” Keith replied, wagging the pistol he held in his right hand.
“Oh, please,” Isaac muttered. “You’re not going anywhere, Keith. We need you here, not in the front hall getting shot to death.”
Keith blew out a breath and shoved his pistol back into its holster. “Fine, fine, let’s get moving,” he said, starting forward and pulling the already unlocked kitchen door open. Jude and Sadie were on the porch—Jude with a baseball bat in his hand, Sadie holding two machetes; all three weapons were dripping blood.
“About time you guys showed up,” Sadie quipped. “You missed all the fun.”
“Not all of it,” Cade replied, stepping out onto the back porch. “We’ve got a bigger problem, and it’s one that’s probably a hell of a lot harder to kill.”
“What?”
“Trained soldiers,” Cade answered. “Unlike the infected, they don’t just try to eat you. No, these guys will try to kill you.”
“Shit,” Sadie muttered. “I’ve only ever killed actual people once before, and it was not a pleasant experience.”
“Cade!” someone yelled to their right, and everyone turned as one, weapons raised and aimed at the potentia
l threat. Cade saw the figure running toward them, and as she recognized the shape of it, she let out a breath of relief and lowered her pistol.
“Jesus, Remy, are you trying to get yourself shot?” she asked, exasperated. Remy looked terrible, her clothes and hair covered in splinters of wood and flecks of paint, and she was flushed and panting.
“No, but we’ve got incoming, and we need to get out of here,” Remy replied. She looked Cade up and down and added, “Brandt will be happy to know you’re okay.”
Cade’s eyes widened. “You know where Brandt is?” she asked, urgency welling up in her. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Remy said, but she didn’t look at Cade as she said it. “We need to get the hell out of here, now.”
“Remy, please,” Cade begged, but her pleading was cut off by a wave of pain that built, crested, and finally washed over. She bit down on her lip, fumbling for and grabbing the porch railing in a white-knuckled grip.
“Cade, are you okay?” Remy asked in alarm.
But Cade couldn’t answer, since she was too busy grinding her teeth into powder.
“What’s wrong with her?” Remy asked.
“It’s a contraction, that’s all,” she heard Derek say distractedly.
“Contraction?” Remy exploded. “She’s in labor?”
The wave of pain backed off and passed, and Cade breathed in deeply, almost panting, as if she had run a mile. “Yes, I’m in labor.”
“Perfect timing, Cade. Just wonderful,” Remy said.
“It’s not like I plan this shit, Remy.”
Isaac stepped into the brewing argument with his hands up. “Okay, ladies, cut it out. We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here, and we need to find a vehicle as soon as possible after that. Then—”
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 25